Twenty days after his horrible crash during the sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse, Mauricio Soler is still into the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Colombian rider is being accompanied by his wife Patricia and a brother of her, and evolves slowly but steadily from all his injuries.

Movistar Team doctor Alfredo Zúñiga reports on the latest improvements on Soler's condition: “His status is getting better very slowly, but he keeps taking small steps and the doctors are thinking of taking him out of the Intensive Care Unit. Due to this, we have started to all arrangements to take him back to Pamplona (Spain). He's not into coma anymore, but is kept under a high drowsiness. He spends most of the time asleep, but when he has moments of lucidity, he obeys to easy orders. The checks over him still don't remark on any injury at peripheral or medular levels, but this is something we can't rule out at the moment. The lung problems are completely under control and he doesn't need artificial respiration, he breathes by himself. The rest of his injuries are also going through a positive progress. It's going to be a long, slow process yet, so some weeks can go by with no major news”

In a nail-biting final stage at the Tour de Suisse on Sunday, Team RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer (37) put in a sterling performance in the time trial to cap off a solid week of racing and claim the overall victory by only four seconds, taking the yellow jersey off the back of Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD) on the last day of racing.   Starting the race with 1:59 to make up to Cunego,  Leipheimer went right to work as soon as he rolled out of the start house, showing steady gains at each of the two check points, finally crossing the line in third place behind leader Fabian Cancellara and teammate Andreas Klöden.  Cunego was still on course and a hard week of aggressive racing seemed to be the undoing of the Italian rider, who in the end lost more than two minutes, handing the overall to Leipheimer.

Earlier in the week Levi Leipheimer lost 40-seconds on a dangerous descent in stage three, opting for a more conservative approach to racing with an eye to the start of the Tour de France in two weeks.   At that point Leipheimer’s position on the classification was tenth, but stage-after-stage Leipheimer continued to show good form, attacking and following the moves in the Alps and steadily moving up in the overall.  At the end of Saturday’s stage 8 he held fourth place but had an almost two-minute deficit to make up, and was hoping the lost 40 seconds from stage three would not come back to haunt him.  They didn’t. 

Leipheimer’s classification victory was bolstered up by the excellent performances from teammates Andreas Klöden and Nelson Oliviera who took second and fourth on the time trial stage. 

“What a race. I really didn’t know how close it was with Cunego,” said Levi Leipheimer in Schaffhausen. “All I heard was my director yelling at me in the last corner ‘Sprint! Sprint!’ and I could hear in his voice that it really was a question of seconds.”

“I almost lost my voice because of the yelling,” said Team Director Dirk Demol. “Levi likes to be pushed and it was necessary and close today. Earlier in the day I followed Nelson Oliveira, who did a great TT too. After having seen the course I told Levi he had to believe in it. He did. Winning the Tour de Suisse, that was not a foregone conclusion.”

For Levi Leipheimer the Tour de Suisse is his 15th overall victory as a pro rider in a stage race. Among his wins are victories in the Tour of California (three times), the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour of Germany.

“This Tour de Suisse has really been tough this year. Very mountainous, very hard. You could see there was no field sprint at all this week,” continued Leipheimer. “I had some good days, but also bad days, but without Team Radioshack there was no way I could win today. I am very happy I did not disappoint. Now it’s time to take some rest and start in the Tour de France.”

“Levi will be ready for that race in which he already stood on the podium,” added Dirk Demol. “I don’t think there will be a chance that Levi will be too early with his form. He will be good in France. We had the luck too that Levi could save forces during this race. We have to be honest, Damiano Cunego and his teammates did control the race. I feel sad for him because he lost the race on the last day, with only some seconds, but that’s sport. Levi had the chance to win this race by doing a hard effort. Today he did an enormous effort; he went very deep and it worked out fine for the team but earlier this week he could count on his teammates who kept him out of the wind. This is a victory for the whole team.”

Leipheimer concluded: “I am so happy to win here because it is a big race with a nice history and palmares. Yesterday I got an email from Andy Hampsten.  He won this race twice as an American. I am proud to follow his footsteps.”

Result: Stage 9:  Schaffhausen, ITT, 32.1km/20mi
1 Fabian Cancellara 0:41:01;  2 Andreas Klöden (Team RadioShack) 00:09;  3 Levi Leipheimer (Team RadioShack) 00:13;  4 Nelson Oliveira (Team RadioShack) 00:25;  5 Tom Danielson 00:38;  6 Gustav Larsson 00:41;  7 Jakob Fuglsang 00:44;  8 Thomas De Gendt 00:48;  9 Chris Froome 01:02;  10 Christian Vande Velde 01:04

Overal Classification Tour de Suisse
1 Levi Leipheimer (Team RadioShack) 31:45:02;  2 Damiano Cunego 00:04;  3 Steven Kruijswijk 01:02;  4 Jakob Fuglsang 01:10;  5 Bauke Mollema 02:05;  6 Mathias Frank 02:24;  7 Frank Schleck 02:35;  8 Laurens Ten Dam 03:11;  9 Tom Danielson 03:17;  10 Maxime Monfort 04:12

By Jarrod Patridge

Q. Alessandro, congratulations on your recent win in Stage 4 at the Tour de Suisse. Nobody likes to see a bad crash likethat, can you talk us through the last 100 metres or so and tell us how you managed to stay out of trouble.

Of course it’s not completely satisfying winning in a sprint characterized by a bad crash. This time, I was lucky: at 250 mt to go, I had to slow down because of a rider that closed my path and so I chose the right side of the street: I took a look at my opponents on the other side and suddenly I saw a strange movement and I heard a strong sound of crash. I went on pedaling and I won, but I thought it would not have been correct celebrate the success.

This victory is important for the morale, since it came after a bad period for me, full of crashes, illness and bad luck. Now I have quite good feelings and I know I can be competitive in Tour de France sprints against the best sprinters of the world.

The training is quite always the usual, even if I had to add some kilometers to the normal quantity because I had to rest for 10 days because of the bronchial asthma that stopped me in the Giro d’Italia. For a sprinter, it’s important to train for stamina and the explosiveness at the same time, so the peculiar part of the training in view of Tour de France is focused on this target.

Giro d’Italia, for an Italian cyclist, is always something special, so when in 2003 I won the stage in Lecce conquering the pink jersey it was a dream come true: this is my best memory related to a Grand Tour. Of course winning in Tour de France is also an outstanding thing, it’s a worldwide stage for every cyclist.

As already explained, every Italian kid that begins to pedal on a bike dreams to win in Giro d’Italia. So, to realize that dream is the top. In addition, if you can get the pink jersey too, you can live moments that you’ll never forget.

I can tell that surely the toughest opponent has been Mario Cipollini: he was and he still is an example for all the sprinters and I’m very glad that I could compete, and even win, in sprints against him. Mario was for sure the best one.

Of course I will ride my Wilier Superleggera “Ale-Jet”: it’s a very good bike, whose frame is the perfect mix of rigidity and driveability. Wilier fulfilled my requests and needs in a perfect way, the feeling with the bike was immediate and for a sprinter is not always so usual.

I have another year of contract with team Lampre-Farnese Vini: I’m focused on performing the best for my team, then if at the end of 2011 I have the will to go on in the cycling world, I will evaluate the situation. But at the moment I can’t really tell what it will be for my future.

The skin of the fans: it happens sometimes, but it’s always so strange…